Butkus has a new reality

Pro Football Hall of Famer Dick Butkus will help coach Montour High School as part of a reality television show that begins Sept. 20 on ESPN.

The show, “Bound For Glory: The Montour Spartans,” will consist of eight one-hour episodes and will document the team’s season and its community involvement. Butkus will assist the team’s first-year coach, Lou Cerro.

Montour, a Class AAA school in suburban Pittsburgh, was 1-8 last season and hasn’t qualified for the District 7 playoffs for the last six seasons. Cerro had been the head coach at Seton-La Salle High School in Pittsburgh the past 12 seasons. He guided the team to a 13-1 record and the District 7 Class AA title last year.

“I think it will be a good thing for the team,” Cerro said. “The school will certainly benefit from it. The toughest job I’m going to have is keeping the team’s focus with five cameras running around.

“I was a bit skeptical about it at first, but then I talked with Butkus and felt better about things.”

Butkus, who will probably live in the school district during the season, has no high school coaching experience.

Upper Deck takes a Fleer

The Upper Deck card company has won an auction to take over rival Fleer’s name and its toy car business.

Upper Deck, of Carlsbad, Calif., bid $6.1 million for the intellectual property and die-cast toy business of debt-ridden Fleer, according to the Web site of Warren J. Martin Jr., a lawyer overseeing Thursday’s auction.

Saddled with nearly $40 million in debt, Fleer went out of business in May. Lawyers for the New Jersey-based company said that the rising costs associated with putting sports memorabilia into packs of cards, coupled with dwindling interest in the hobby, led to the company’s demise.

It’s Hockey Night, again

Don Cherry is returning to Hockey Night in Canada.

“Is it October yet?” Cherry has been quoted as asking. “I’ve been chomping at the bit, waiting for hockey’s return. I’ve got a whole new closet of suits I need to show off.”